One of the most important societal changes of recent times has been the emergence of the Internet, more particularly, the World Wide Web (e.g., the Web), as a predominant communications medium. The Web represents all the computer's on the Internet that offer users access to information and documentation media interactive hypermedia, or Web pages. Web pages describe documents in which hypertext links are used connecting a multitude of combinations of graphics, audio, video, and text. Such combinations are often interlinked and interconnected in nonlinear, nonsequential manners.
Web page authors use specialized software, for example, HTML (hypertext markup language), Java, XML (extensible markup language), and the like, to create Web pages and to format the various hypermedia links, objects, fields, etc., within the Web pages. The most basic component of Web page creation is the HTML editor. An HTML editor is a low-level Web site authoring tool that is essentially a text editor, specialized for writing HTML code. It assists the HTML author (e.g., the Web page author or Web site designer) by cataloging all HTML tags and common structures in menus and by being able to catch certain syntax errors. It often displays tags and contents in colors so they pop out for easy reference.
HTML editors comprise the foundation of many different prior art Web authoring software tools. A typical Web authoring tool comprises a Web site development system including a suite of programs that allow Web pages to be visually created like a desktop publishing program. Web authoring software (e.g., often synonymous with Web development software) generates the required HTML code for the pages and is able to switch back and forth (in varying degrees) between the page layout and the HTML. At a high level, the software's value to the designer is determined by the usefulness of its GUI tools for designing the page, and the software's ability to provide the desired Òlook and feelÓ of the page. At a low level, the clarity and reliability of HTML code that is generated, determines the technical correctness of the page, and how easily others can modify and maintain the site.
More advanced prior art Web authoring software provide the ability to read an entire Web site and display it as a graphical hierarchy of pages. Comprehensive programming-oriented sets of tools are provided for linking pages to databases and other software components, and for managing existing sites. The management and maintenance of large sites is typically a very technically involved responsibility. Such ÒWebmastersÓ must be technically proficient in HTML as well as one or more scripting and interface languages such as JavaScript and Perl, in addition to having technical experience with more than one type of Web server.
The graphical aspects, or the look and feel aspects, of Web site design is often a responsibility of more sales oriented personnel as opposed to technical personnel. For example, large commercial sites are often intimately related to or directly involved in product sales to customers. Commerce related internet sites, or Òelectronic commerceÓ sites, originally evolved from remote forms of electronic shopping to mean all aspects of business and market processes enabled by wide area communications networks. E-commerce is a rapidly growing field, and is generally understood to mean doing business on-line or selling and buying products and services through Web (e.g., Internet based) storefronts or through other similar distributed computer networks. Generally, understanding and tailoring the aspects of commerce is a particular expertise of the marketing/sales trained people.
Thus, modern Web page design (for commerce related sites) requires the coordination of the two types of skill sets, the technical (or programming) skill set and the market/sales (or graphic design) skill set. The graphical design skill set is required in order to devise an appropriate look and feel for the Web page which compliments and enhances the overall purpose of a particular Web site, for example, a retail Web site selling products/services to consumers. The technical skill set is required in order to ensure the reliability and functionality of the Web page, for example, to ensure the various data entry fields or selection buttons or the like function in the manner in which they were intended (e.g., bringing up the correct price when a user selects among the products/services).
There exists a problem however, with regard to arranging the close coordination required to update and maintain Web pages of a site. As described above, the look and feel aspects of a particular site are usually very closely intertwined with the technical aspects of the site (e.g., Java, tags, etc.). At present, no easily used (e.g., “WYSIWYG”) editor for the pages. For example, in large e-commerce Web sites, the fashioning of new Web pages typically require graphic designers for defining the look and feel of the page, and software technicians/specialists for construction of the page itself. Coordinating the groups of people is an arduous, time-consuming task. Multiple iterations (e.g., reviews, comments, and new implementations) is usually required, with multiple “committee meetings” in order to get it right. Such inefficiency, with two sets of people trying to edit the same page, often leads to errors.
The resulting inefficiency makes the implementation of Web page changes very hard to carry out. Any changes in the look, color, tabs, buttons, or the like, often requires completely rebuilding the page. With current Web site authoring tools there exists very tight constraints with regard to the code of the page. It is difficult to simply “cut and paste” changes into the page. It becomes expensive to implement changes to, for example, respond to competitors. It becomes expensive to quickly modify pages in response to changes in the products. And often times, costly outside consultants are brought in to perform the required modifications.
Thus, what is required is a way to simplify the process of maintaining a Web site. What is required is a solution that renders the update and maintenance process of a Web site much easier than the prior art. What is required is a solution that accelerates the update process while reducing communication/coordination issues. The required solution should improve the speed and responsiveness of the resulting site to changing conditions, customers, and the like. Their required solution should streamline the Web site maintenance process while retaining reliable technical aspects (e.g., java, HTML, etc.) of the Web site. The present invention provides a novel solution to these requirements.